A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

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Tag: financial system

When it comes to banking policy, there are few people I respect more than Jonathan Macey and Arnold Kling; so when these two, independently, argue that we should be breaking up the largest banks, it is idea that merits consideration. Yet I still have my doubts.

First, lets start with what we are fairly certain of. There is a large empirical literature that suggest most US mega-banks are beyond their efficient size. There is a good survey of the literature by former Fed Economist Allen Berger . So, at a minimum, the academic literature suggests the largest banks are beyond a size that is justified by the social benefits.

However, there is also a small literature that suggests more concentrated banking systems are more stable, and less prone to crisis. Some of this literature has grown out of research efforts by the World Bank. While this literature is largely cross-country comparisons, recalling our own banking history gives several examples - the savings & loan crisis, the mass of small banks failures in the 1920s and 1930s, and current day Georgia - where lots of small bank failures have been associated with significant economic damage. So, at minimum, there is some question of whether breaking up the largest banks would give us a more stable, less crisis-prone system. In fact, there is considerable evidence to suggest that breaking up the banks would make our financial system more fragile.

To some extent, the debate over breaking up the large banks is about reducing political power. The argument is that, because of their vast resources, these large banks unduly influence and capture our political system. Undoubtedly, I believe the largest banks have substantial influence over both our legislative and regulatory systems. However, so do smaller banks. From my seven years as staff on the Senate Banking Committee, I would definitely argue that the Independent Community Banks Association (ICBA), as a group, has far more pull than does say Bank of America, as a single company. One need only witness the various exemptions for small banks in the Dodd bill, for instance from the consumer protection bureau, to illustrate the lobbying power of small bankers. One could also argue that the economic history of progressive era legislation, like the Sherman Act, is one of smaller, organized interests winning against larger sized firms. Despite its appeal, the assertion that bigger is always better in politics is just an assertion. Yet this is at heart an empirical argument, and perhaps one that can be tested. Until then, I still have my doubts.

This month, two vice-presidents of the Czech National Bank (CNB) have made very serious allegations against the International Monetary Fund. Below is the summary of their claims so far:

Speaking to the Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard on April 2, Mojmir Hampl, the vice-president of the CNB, said that the IMF under Dominique Strauss-Kahn “wanted to expand its role in Eastern Europe and obtain new financial resources.” Hampl claimed that the IMF exaggerated problems with the financial systems in Eastern Europe. “We have always emphasized that the instability of the financial system [in 2008] was a Western European problem. That proved correct… According to a recent EU report, only nine out of 27 EU member states did not have to introduce any financial stabilization measures [during the crisis]. All nine were new [mostly Eastern European] member states.”

Hampl’s claim was echoed by his colleague, CNB vice-president Miroslav Singer, in today’s edition of the Czech daily Hospodarske Noviny. According to Singer, “I cannot say nice things about the IMF’s role in the 2008 crisis.” The Financial Times, Singer continued, carried a lot of nonsensical stories about the state of the Czech financial sector prior to the crisis. Instead of dispelling those stories, the IMF produced a study about the Czech Republic based on incorrect data and then leaked it to the Financial Times. “It is difficult to be certain… that the IMF wanted to harm the Czechs, Slovaks or Poles on purpose… More likely it was a combination of panic, lack of expertise and a desire to see problems everywhere.”

If true, these claims raise troubling questions about the incentives behind the largest increase of resources in the Fund’s history.

Today, in what seems like an endless string of 3-2 votes, the SEC moved to restrict the ability of investors to short stocks, claiming that such restrictions would restore stability and protect our financial system. The truth couldn’t be more different. Short sellers have long been the first, and often only, voice raising questions about corporate fraud and mismanagement. For instance, shorts exposed the fraud at Enron, WorldCom and other companies while the SEC largely slept.

Bush’s SEC, lead by former Congressman Chris Cox banned the shorting of various financial industry stocks during the crisis. The SEC then, as now, would have us believe that Bear, Lehman, AIG, Fannie, Freddie and others were not the victims of their own mismanagement, but rather victims of bear raids by short sellers. In another instance of Obama and his appointees reading from the Bush playbook, SEC Chair Mary Shapiro finds ever creative ways to expand Cox’s misguided policies.

Short sellers only profit if they end up being correct. Sadly Washington instead believes in punishing market mechanisms that work and throwing increasingly more money at failed agencies, like the SEC. Rather than attacking short sellers we should applaud them for doing the SEC’s job. But then if we had more short selling, providing greater incentives for investors to root out fraud, we might start to question why we even have the SEC.

Cato experts put some of President Obama’s core State of the Union claims to the test. Here’s what they found.

THE STIMULUS

Obama’s claim:

The plan that has made all of this possible, from the tax cuts to the jobs, is the Recovery Act. That’s right – the Recovery Act, also known as the Stimulus Bill. Economists on the left and the right say that this bill has helped saved jobs and avert disaster.

Back in reality: At the outset of the economic downturn, Cato ran an ad in the nation’s largest newspapers in which more than 300 economists (Nobel laureates among them) signed a statement saying a massive government spending package was among the worst available options. Since then, Cato economists have published dozens of op-eds in major news outlets poking holes in big-government solutions to both the financial system crisis and the flagging economy.

CUTTING TAXES

Obama’s claim:

Let me repeat: we cut taxes. We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college. As a result, millions of Americans had more to spend on gas, and food, and other necessities, all of which helped businesses keep more workers.

Back in reality: Cato Director of Tax Policy Studies Chris Edwards: “When the president says that he has ‘cut taxes’ for 95 percent of Americans, he fails to note that more than 40 percent of Americans pay no federal incomes taxes and the administration has simply increased subsidy checks to this group. Obama’s refundable tax credits are unearned subsidies, not tax cuts.”

Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years.

Back in reality: Edwards: “The president’s proposed spending freeze covers just 13 percent of the total federal budget, and indeed doesn’t limit the fastest growing components such as Medicare.

“A better idea is to cap growth in the entire federal budget including entitlement programs, which was essentially the idea behind the 1980s bipartisan Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law. The freeze also doesn’t cover the massive spending under the stimulus bill, most of which hasn’t occurred yet. Now that the economy is returning to growth, the president should both freeze spending and rescind the remainder of the planned stimulus.”

Because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. 200,000 work in construction and clean energy. 300,000 are teachers and other education workers. Tens of thousands are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, and first responders. And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year.

Back in reality: Cato Policy Analyst Tad Dehaven: “Actually, the U.S. economy has lost 2.7 million jobs since the stimulus passed and 3.4 million total since Obama was elected. How he attributes any jobs gains to the stimulus is the fuzziest of fuzzy math. ‘Nuff said.”

Perhaps I am a little confused, but didn’t the Obama Administration tell the American public only months ago that TARP was turning a profit? But now the same administration is proposing to assess a fee on banks to cover losses from the TARP. Maybe President Obama is coming around to the realization that the TARP has indeed been a loser for the taxpayer. He appears, however, to be missing the critical reason why: the bailouts of the auto companies and AIG, all non-banks. This is to say nothing of the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose losses will far exceed those from the TARP. Where is the plan to re-coup losses from Fannie and Freddie? Or a plan to re-coup our rescue of the autos?

If the effort is really about deficit reduction, then it completely misses the mark. Any serious deficit reduction plan has to start with Medicare and Social Security. Assessing bank fees is nothing more than a rounding error in terms of the deficit. Let’s put aside the politics and get serious about both fixing our financial system and bringing our fiscal house into order. The problem driving our deficits is not a lack of revenues, aside from effects of the recession, revenues have remained stable as a percent of GDP, the problem is runaway spending.

The bank tax would also miss what one has to guess is Obama’s target, the bank CEOs. Econ 101 tells us (maybe the President can ask Larry Summers for some tutoring) corporations do not bear the incidence of taxes, their consumers and shareholders do. So the real outcome of this proposed tax would be to increase consumer banking costs while reducing the value of bank equity, all at a time when banks are already under-capitalized.

But now the same administration is proposing to assess a fee on banks to cover losses from the TARP. Maybe President Obama is coming around to the realization that the TARP has indeed been a loser for the taxpayer. He appears, however, to be missing the critical reason why: the bailouts of the auto companies and AIG, all non-banks. This is to say nothing of the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose losses will far exceed those from the TARP. Where is the plan to re-coup losses from Fannie and Freddie? Or a plan to re-coup our rescue of the autos?

Perhaps the biggest problem with the Obama plan to “reform” our financial system is the impact it would have on the market perception surrounding “too big to fail” institutions. In identifying some companies as “too big to fail” holders of debt in those companies would assume that they would be made whole if those companies failed. After all, that is what we did for the debt-holders in Fannie, Freddie, AIG, and Bear. Both former Secretary Paulson and Geithner appear under the impression that moral hazard only applies to equity, despite debt constituting more than 90% of the capital structure of the typical financial firm.

Geithner believes he’s found a way to solve this problem - he’ll just tell everyone that there isn’t an implicit subsidy, and there won’t be a list of “too big to fail” companies. Great, why didn’t I think of that. After all, the constant refrain in Washington over the years that Fannie and Freddie weren’t getting an implicit subsidy really prepared the markets for their demise.

Even more bizarre is Geithner’s assertion that the government can force these institutions to hold higher capital, maintain more liquidity and be subjected to greater supervision, all without anyone knowing who exactly these companies are. Does the Secretary truly believe that these companies’ securities disclosures won’t include the amount of capital they are holding? Whether there is an official list or not is besides the question, market participants will be able to infer that list from publicly available information and the actions of regulators.

One has to wonder whether Geithner spent any of his time at the NY Fed actually watching how markets work. Before we continue down the path of financial reform, maybe it would be useful for our Treasury Secretary to take a few weeks off to study what got us into this mess. We’ve already been down this road of denying implicit subsidies and then providing them after the fact. Maybe it’s time to try something different.

Today the Center for American Progress rolled out its proposal that we add “public directors” to the boards of companies that have been bailed out by the government. CAP scholar Emma Coleman Jordan argues that “public directors will provide a corrective to the boards of the financial institutions that helped cause the crisis.”

One has to wonder whether Ms. Jordan has ever heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If she had, she might recall that a substantial number of the board members of Fannie and Freddie were so-called “public” members appointed by the President. Perhaps she can ask CAP adjunct scholar and former Fannie Mae executive Ellen Seidman to review the history of those companies for her.

Where’s the evidence that any of those Fannie/Freddie “public” directors, whether they were appointed by Republican or Democrat Presidents, ever once look out for the public interest? In fact all the evidence points to these public directors looking out for the interests of Fannie and Freddie, often lobbying Congress and the Administration on the behalf of these companies.

I suppose CAP would tell us that having the regulators pick the directors instead of the president would protect us from having those positions filled with political hacks. Ms. Jordan argues that “regulators should determine most of the details of the public directorships—after all, they have the most direct experience in trying to regulate private companies that have received public funds.” We tried that route as well. In contrast to Fannie/Freddie, each of the twelve Federal Home Loan Banks had to have a number of its directors appointed by its then regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Board. It was well known within the Beltway that these appointments were more often political hacks than not. For instance one long time director of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh was the son of a senior member of the US House Committee on Finance Services. Once again we’ve gone down this road, we know how this story ends.

If we are truly interested in protecting the taxpayer, we should, first, end the ability of the Federal Reserve to bailout companies, and second, as quickly as possible remove any government involvement in these companies. Having the government appoint board directors only further entangles the government into our financial system; and if Fannie and Freddie are a good guide, actually increases the chances of future bailouts.